A bit of history for the holiday ALYSSA PASSEGGIO, Senior Staff Writer, The Courier, July 10 Posted:07/12/08
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As citizens reflect on the history of our country after the July Fourth celebrations, Monmouth County residents can peek back into the records of history.
The county clerk’s office has made available the 1875 census as part of the Open Public Records System (OPRS) on its Web site.
“It is interesting to read because almost everyone was a farmer. Now, farms have almost disappeared,” Monmouth County Clerk M. Claire French said.
French noted that the county still has some farmers due to the ability to sell off development rights during a better market.
The clerk said there were a notable number of fishermen, and that shellers were the most unusual profession she came across.
Shellers worked on sections of the river that were used to harvest oysters, she said.
About 3,300 people were listed as in the agriculture industry on the census, with nine in commerce, 62 in manufacturing and six in mining.
The manufacturers of that day were blacksmiths and shoemakers, unlike the manufacturers found in the county today, she said.
Mining was based around the natural occurring marl in the soil, which was a major industry in the time, French said.
The census shows a population in the county of 34,174 for that time. Today the county’s approximate population is more than 655,600 people.
The census is broken up into the 10 towns that existed only 100 years after the Revolution: Atlantic, Freehold, Holmdel, Howell, Marlboro, Middletown, Ocean, Shrewsbury, Upper Freehold and Wall.
Visitors to the site can also look up birth and death records in the county.
French noted the authenticity in the system that allows visitors to view an image of the actual page, rather than information that was just entered onto a computer page.
“By putting it on the OPRS, people can download the image in good quality. It is as if they were looking at a photograph of the page,” French said. “It is fun just to look at some of the historical names on the pages.”
The clerk’s office has been working on making this document available online for several years and it was posted about three weeks ago, she said.
Since 1996, French said her office has made documents available online for people to do research. Further, clerk employees have been backlogging information with the goal of having 60 years worth of information available online.
The 60-year goal came from a requirement for title searches, which typically go back about 60 years, she said.
Until everything is online, French said the research room in the lower level of the Monmouth County Library’s Manalapan Branch, Simms Road, contains archives on microfilm and some on DVD.
To view the 1875 census visit the OPRS at the clerk’s Web site at http://oprs.co.monmouth.nj.us, click on the County Clerk tab, then click on the Archives tab.
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